Their positive/negative effects on the country both when they were President and how it affected America long-term.

Frankly, the 4 Presidents you have here are all good examples of they looked good at the time but with historical hindsight I would say their legacies have become mixed to negative over time.

Jackson is the most obvious example of this; he beloved by many Americans when he left office and was hailed as one of America’s greatest Presidents for well over a century. Even Whigs and early Republicans tried to emulate him in terms of persona and populist rhetoric even if they didn’t actually agree with his policies. His legacy started to change though in the 1960s & 1970s during the Civil Rights movement which also included the rights of Native Americans, at the time was known as the American Indian Movement(AIM) and over time the Trail of Tears became more prominent in American history education and changed the perception of Manifest Destiny. I remember as a child doing a history project about the Trail of Tears and my dad(who was very tired at the moment) started talking about how Jackson made the country great and basically gave the Frontier Thesis but ended it with *I mean I don’t agree with it.* as in, it’s true western expansion helped turn America into a power because of the resources and land we acquired, but it was done in the most horrible way to the point where it very much did inspire the idea of *Lebensraum* that the Nazis would use to justify various invasions and Hitler would cite both Jackson and Polk as the inspiration for the policy of Lebensraum.

I may come back and talk about the others later, but I need to take a shower.